Against Alcibiades: For Deserting the Ranks

You must reflect that, if men are to be permitted to do whatever they please, it is useless to have your code of laws, your Assemblies, or your election of generals. And I wonder, gentlemen, at anyone considering it right, when a man has retired, at the approach of the enemy, from his post in the first rank to a place in the second, to convict him of cowardice, and then, if a man has appeared in the cavalry when his post was in the infantry, to grant him a pardon!

And besides, gentlemen, I conceive that your judgement is given, not merely with a view to the offenders, but also for the reformation of all other insubordinate persons. Now, if you punish men who are unknown, not one among the rest will be improved; for nobody will know the sentences that you have passed: but if you inflict the penalty on the most conspicuous offenders, everyone will be apprised, and so the citizens, with this example before them, will be improved.

Again, if you condemn this man, not only will the people of our city know, but our allies also will take notice and our enemies will be informed; and they will hold our city in much higher regard if they see that you are especially indignant at this kind of offence, and that those who are insubordinate in war obtain no pardon.

And reflect, gentlemen, that some of the soldiers were sick, while others lacked the necessaries of life, and that the former would have been glad to remain for treatment in their cities, and the latter to retire home and attend to their own affairs; others would have liked to serve as light-armed troops, or else to take their risk with the cavalry.

But still, you did not venture to desert your ranks or choose what was most agreeable to yourselves, but were far more afraid of the city’s laws than of the danger of meeting the foe. All this you should remember when you give your vote today, and so make evident to all that any Athenians who do not wish to do battle with the enemy will suffer sorely at your hands.